章節 20: A Pure Knight’s Natural Enemy – Chapter 19 [8.5k Words, NSFW]
We've already talked about missables, that bane of any RPG player, that pointless way to 'reward exploration' which, of course, means nothing other than 'Let's give anyone dumb enough to still follow our franchise sheer anxiety attacks whenever they're asked if they want to leave a map.'
Never mind if there's a message along the lines of 'Are you sure you want to depart? It may be some time before you can come back.'
Bastards. The lot of them.
Because what that actually means to the seasoned connoisseur is, 'Of course I'm not sure, seeing as I've only checked every clearly interactable tile twice, and I may have missed some of the non-interactable ones that are usually disguised as regular sprites that have never prompted any kind of message when I've clicked on them on any other map, but this time may be different—not to mention that only trying something twice means nothing when a hidden flag may have switched things around, or a variable may be counting precisely how many times I've tried to open a given chest and there's absolutely no way for me to learn about it other than checking a walkthrough, which basically amounts to admitting defeat and what kind of gamer values their time more than the vague sense of triumph at getting one over the smug devs?'
A shitty gamer, that's who.
Or one with an actual life. Which, given the stringent requirements that a truly devoted gaming lifestyle demands of its adepts is actually synonymous with 'shitty gamer.' Really. It's not that a lot of people drawn to the hobby have non-standard ways of thinking, an inborn propensity toward hyperfocus, and difficulty socializing, not at all; it's just that those of us who heed the higher calling of our true faith are all but sworn to forsake earthly pursuits so that we can stand pure in front of our digital altars.
Really.
Swear to Aqua. May she endure a hundred years of abstinence if I am untruthful in the slightest.
"Kazuma?" Darkness, somebody who understands far better than the average non-gamer what it is to throw away your social life, your ambitions, and your very dignity in pursuit of a higher calling, says. Yes, in her case, the higher calling means being a debased masochistic sow, but who am I to judge.
Ah, that's right. There's a truly pertinent answer to this very question:
"Yes, it's me, Kazuma," I say with the smug satisfaction of somebody with enough mental adroitness to answer at once his own internal inquiries and those of the world around him, truly becoming a bridge between macrocosm and microcosm or whatever it is that a Xenogears boss will rant about before an unnecessarily long battle.
"I know it's you…" she says with a bit of a pout, with her straw hat covering the very top of her devastatingly blue eyes, because of course the paladin of the group would have some kind of skill for clothes to dramatically bend to her whims—wait, is that an actual thing? Because if it is, I dread what Darkness could do when assisted by Aqua's sartorial prowess.
Case in point—
"Kyaaaa!" I yell, perfectly dignified, as a stray gust of wind lifts my skirt, seeing as Aqua made it perfectly clear that it is not, in fact, a kilt that I'm now pushing down with both hands to avoid exposing myself to the pedestrians idly ambulating through Axel's main square.
"Wha—stop that!" the Crusader says, standing in front of me to protect the innocent masses from a rampaging orc or whatever it is she thinks she's doing with those arms of hers spread wide and her sundress flaring around her.
"I don't have a weather control skill!"
"Well, you should! You have about every other skill in the book; why make an exception?"
"Because being exceptional is, of course, my main character trait. Try to keep up, Darkness."
"Exceptionally gross, maybe…" a Fighter who doesn't fill out that bikini armor that flatteringly comments as she walks by, her perennial companion letting out a very unladylike snort at what passes for wit among the common rabble.
"Are you two stalking me?" I very reasonably ask.
"Wha—are you insane?" The mage demands.
I lift a very indignant pointer finger as I contemplate the best way to go around my scathing rebuttal.
Then stop for a moment and think.
The finger slowly lowers.
"… Kazuma?" Darkness asks, her red face hidden behind both contrastingly pale hands.
"Yes, dear?" I offer.
"Why aren't you saying you are not insane?"
The forefinger catches a second wind, rising up to point at the Heavens above, as defiant as a main character about to punch God in the face with the Gloves of Divine Facepunching whose pricetag could bankrupt entire nations and maybe even afford you ten nights of stay at the last inn in the game.
It quivers in righteous fury.
Then, again, the magnificent digit slowly lowers.
"Kazuma," Darkness says, glaring at me with a single azure eye peeking through spread fingers.
"I mean…" I start. Then, I refuse to continue.
"You mean?" Darkness says, likely unaware of the slowly gathering circle of adventurers drawn toward incoming violence by their honed professional instincts.
"I have had sex with Aqua?" I offer with an eloquently muscled shrug.
"What?" Darkness asks with an eerie chorus reverberating under the single syllable, echoing and underlining every nuance—ah, no, that was actually a lot of people asking the same thing.
"I mean, would you qualify as sane somebody who, willingly and repeatedly, has had sexual intercourse with the Goddess of Being Insanely Talented Yet Unemployed?" I say, focusing on the only one of my interlocutors that I know the name of, even if some of the faces hovering around us are worryingly familiar.
"I have had sex with Aqua. Repeatedly and willingly," Darkness states, her hands finally lowering so she can imposingly cross her arms under her bust after a failed attempt at doing so around said bust that resulted in flesh freely flowing around its restrains in ways that, while eye-catching, failed at being intimidating in any way whatsoever for anyone other than Past Megumin in her Breast Envy phase.
"What?" the earlier chorus repeats, obviously missing their cue and the chance to also state how voluntary and frequent their dalliances with the Goddess of Poor Life Choices are.
…
Fuck, no. Okay, this is a note for you, Future Kazuma: Even in Aqua's case, do not joke about NTR. It, apparently, makes our orcish blood roar, yet not in the usual way.
As in, I want to murder that handsome, blond ikemen standing in the second row of our gathered public. Just in case.
He looks like he knows why.
"Ah," Darkness finally says when she notices me glaring not at her proudly displayed bust but at people who are wise to not talk about any hypothetical attraction any of them may feel for girls prone to alcoholism and getting black-out drunk in bars—oh fuck. I can't let Aqua go drink on her own. I need to watch over her.
I am responsible for Aqua.
"Kazuma?!" Darkness says in alarm as she reaches out to steady me.
"I am responsible for Aqua," I repeat out loud, just because the thought's too terrible to stay confined inside my head.
"Wha—she's an adult."
"Only because this backward world hasn't heard about the concept of tutelage—"
"She's—all right, fine; she may not be a responsible adult—"
"May?"
"—but she's still a fine, steadfast companion that I've trusted my back to again and again—"
"That would be far more reassuring if you didn't get off on having said back stabbed—"
"I do not—never mind! We're making a spectacle!"
"You are a spectacle! Particularly when you get in front of a monster charging at us, and you get hit hard enough for that armor of yours to do absolutely nothing to constrain your bounciness—"
"What's that about the two of you fucking Aqua?" a voice that I do recognize asks.
Slowly, I turn around to face… a short-haired girl wearing the Guild's uniform. One that I may have even tipped once or twice. Mostly for being nice enough not to break my wrist after my Aqua-lite drunkenness may have made me slightly more touchy-feely than her establishment warrants.
Her question, rather than have the gathered crowd gasp in horror at the faux pas, has the morons nod in eagerness.
And I, faced with this situation that my devoted gamer lifestyle has left me sadly unprepared for…
Huh.
Come to think of it…
"Wha—Kazuma!" Darkness yells as I throw her over my shoulder and run away as fast as I can without having any smoke bombs in my inventory.
Which is, happily, fast enough for the crowd not to react to me finally exiting this map and going to the next area, even though I'm very much aware that it is likely I may not be able to come back any time soon.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the storefront of a jewelry store I have been trying to ignore since we arrived at the square after our little picnic.
And I feel horribly conflicted about all the things that have momentarily turned into missables.
***
Side missions are the very heart and soul of JRPGs—
"Focus," Chris says.
"I am focused," I say, very much focused on the cloaked figure in front of me as she leans forward in a way that has the crème-colored attire display with scarce obfuscation the twin globes shifting back and forth as she seems to struggle with the lock in front of her in ways that I wouldn't expect a veteran rogue, much less an actual goddess, to.
"Could have fooled me…" she mumbles, the side-eye she throws me over her shoulder framed by the hood of the cloak and a single strand of silver hair falling from her bangs.
"I am keeping watch. Not much else I can do other than stare," I say, my arms imposingly crossed across my man—orcish chest and my well-trained eyebrow leaping once again, ready for action even without being given a chance for a proper warm-up.
Her own eyebrow seems to rise to the challenge, but, as it is currently covered by the aforementioned hood, the judges disqualify her attempts, and I'm left once again tasting the bitter loneliness of victory.
"You know, keeping watch usually means staring at something other than your companion's butt," she says, still bent forward and giving an extra wiggle to emphasize both her point and something extremely gropeable.
Something twitches under my Aqua-given skirt.
It is most definitely not because I'm a latent transvestite.
I think.
Like, plenty of warrior cultures actually wore skirts. Even kilts, when you get down to it, are barely distinguishable from what porn would have us believe schoolgirls usually wear. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a self-assured, secure in his masculinity ma—orc proudly displaying his toned calves to a world filled with both admiring stares and jealous ones. And what if an enticing hint of a knee is also displayed? What if the length of the green silk is just shy of showing off the very tip of my ancestral spear? What if a stiff breeze now has a good chance of stunning my enemies by proccing a fortitude save roll? What if the standards of my old world have moved toward an arbitrary predilection for the male to wear garments that will, through his entire adolescence, torture him with arbitrary tightness and revealing outlines at the worst possible moment?
This is a new world! One unfettered by the rules of so-called common sense, not to mention actual common sense! I have seen plenty of people walking around with those 'warrior harnesses' that do nothing at all other than display an uncomfortable amount of manly nipples. A very respected non-member of the adventure guild has a mohawk and pink suspenders, and nobody would dare call him anything other than the very epitome of masculinity. Thus, in this brave new world I find myself in, there's nothing to stop me from saying that skirts are not only far from a stereotypical, blandly feminine garment but the stylish and practical choice for the excessively virile warrior who's not ashamed of his physique.
… Chris, stop looking at me like that. I know it's unlikely that you're reading my thoughts with a Vanir-chan-like telepathy skill that has been hitherto unrevealed, but it's still far too easy for me to project things in that judgmental stare of yours.
"Kazuma?" she asks.
"Yes, dear?" I say out of sheer reflex at recognizing that tone.
For some reason, my automatic reply makes a dusting of pink immediately underline her lone exposed eye, and Chris suddenly looks away from me and at her presumably fascinating lock.
"Just… keep watch," she mutters.
And then proceeds to lightly clink thin pieces of metal inside the kind of lock that one would expect to find in a dungeon, which, given where we are, is more than appropriate.
As in, we are in a dungeon.
Not quite the RPG kind, and I hope that also not the sex kind, but… it's an underground corridor lined with grey stone slabs, and we have squeezed in through, of all things, the sewers. Thankfully, Chris apparently is the kind of rogue who likes to do things in style rather than filth because she creatively used a skill meant to get rid of incriminating tracks to completely erase the disgusting traces of our passage through the kind of place that looks much better on the other side of a screen.
So, yeah. We are in an underground location only lit by the magic, smokeless torch Chris thrust into my hand. There is an indeterminate number (as in, I can't be bothered to count them) of steel-reinforced doors along the left side of this one corridor, and I have absolutely no clue why Chris thinks this counts as a first date.
She's even wearing more clothes than usual! Come on, woman, give me something to work with!
"Chris?" I ask in a discreet sotto voce.
"Yes," she replies with the tip of her enticingly pink tongue peering out of the corner of her mouth.
"You do realize that Crazy Train will wear off if I don't do something sex-related, don't you?" I say.
She stills.
"Doesn't… Doesn't this count? We are on a date…"
"We are on a side quest. Likely a companion quest, and yes, plenty of those end up with a tasteful fade to black, but it's not the point unless you're playing the kind of—I mean, there's not an explicitly sexual or even romantic overtone to any of this, and… uh… Chris?" I ask.
"Yes?" she asks.
"What are you doing?" I inquire of the girl standing straight up and taking the lockpicks out of the orifice they are supposed to be inserted in—good job, brain. Now that I've turned the current scene into something esoterically sexual, maybe my existence won't dilute into the original Kazuma's consciousness—okay, I'm going to stop with the existential horror for just a minute.
"I am actually opening this door," she says.
"Actually?"
"Actually," she asserts as her cloak parts minutely so that she can take out another piece of arcanely-shaped metal that she inserts and twists with a loud click.
"Couldn't you… have done this sooner?"
"Maybe?" she offers with a tad of mischief and a lot of sheepishness.
"Then why—"
"Follow me," she says.
The door opens inward, and we step into what very much looks like either a sex dungeon or something I'd rather not think too much about.
Like… there are a lot of chains. Enough of them to make Darkness salivate. And there's that ever-reliable wooden horse that girls ride in hentai. A few flogs and whips hanging from the walls.
A rack.
So… yeah. I'm going to assume that any and all stains are of a sexual nature rather than… you know.
…
Okay, I've been spending far too much time with Darkness, seeing as I now realize that all stains can be of a sexual nature. It's just… Guro is not my thing, okay? Yeah, fine, I've read enough of it to assault Vanir-chan with the likes of Death Panda, but that was mostly by accident! Like pretty much all of the questionable tags in my browsing history, they are the product of one not always being able to judge a book by its cover—which is in and of itself bullshit because what are covers for if not cueing readers as to the contents of the pirated doujin they are about to jerk off to, no matter how uncomfortable or guilty the session makes them feel after enough time has passed?
"According to my sources… it should be in the next room," Chris cryptically mutters like a character in an anime cueing the audience better than some covers would.
"It?" I ask in a low whisper that only echoes slightly in the room filled with Darkness' hopes and dreams.
"A divine treasure," she says with a single look over her cloaked shoulder.
"… That sounds like something I should be getting a quest reward for."
She stops walking, turns fully toward me, tilts her head to the right and does another 'hidden by her hood eyebrow raise' that the judges are unable to give a score to.
I, for reasons, wet my suddenly dry lips.
"You mean…" I start.
She, rather rudely, rolls her eyes.
"Come on," she says, walking around a table with leather manacles.
"All right, but I want it on the record that I am a generous boyfriend and giving lover who would likely do whatever it is that you want me to do without any need for sexual repayment. After all, I wouldn't want our relationship to be based on a mercenary give and take unless, of course, that's your fetish, in which case I'm okay with you paying me like a cheap hooker—even if I'd rather you paid me like a very expensive one. I mean, after all, I'm literally one of a kind, and the regulatory forces of the free market state that—"
"Kazuma?"
"Yes, dear?"
"Shut up."
"Yes, dear."
For reasons unknown to orckind, Chris giggles at that, and her careful steps turn slightly… bouncier. As if she's just shy of skipping around, waving her arms back and forth like a carefree girl traipsing through a glade filled with white flowers rather than a cloaked figure lurking past implements of dubious torture.
The tan cloak flutters around her ankles, barely hiding her boots from my sight, and she only stops when she reaches another door set in the farthest corner of the room. Or, well, what is shown to be a door after she kneels down and slowly traces the outline of a set of grey stones that reach up to about her current eye level and cast a glow dim enough to be barely noticeable under my torch.
"Hidden room?" I ask.
She nods, muttering inaudible things that may be an enchantment or some kind of engineering problem being solved out loud.
Honestly? I don't really know. I feel like getting more rogue skills would be a waste now that I've got a second goddess in my party, so I should settle in my new role as… something.
…
What is the male equivalent of a healslut? I feel like there should be a male equivalent of a healslut. Also, that I could be amazing at the job, given the health and mana transfer I can already pull off with Lich's Touch, not to mention Yunyun likely having some kind of spell to restore stamina under the flimsiest of sexual pretenses. It would likely be called All Night Long or something like that, and she all but certainly has cast it on Kazuma Prime, much to his perennial scarousal.
I wonder how they are doing?
***
"Mister Kazuuuuumaaaaaa!" the girl bent over at the waist says in a tone that calls to mind rolled-back eyes and a loose jaw as her nails desperately do their best to dig into the dark wood of her bed's post.
"Yes! It's me! Kazuma!" I clarify as I keep thrusting my orcish spear in and out of her, adding the occasional spank just to throw some variety in and make sure she doesn't fall unconscious.
"Too—it's too much!" she says right before throwing her head back, her spine taut and quivering, her folds clenching right down on me, and— "Aaaaaaahhhhh!"
Yeah. That.
"Well then! Maybe you should've thought about this before casting an endurance booster on me that also acts as an aphrodisiac, shouldn't you?!" I say, only stopping my thrusting hips to grind against her from behind, my hands going from her waist to cupping her breasts from down below, helping her arch further back until her lips meet mine over her shoulder and I, once again, taste Yunyun, her tongue, and her saliva.
"I—" she says, as the magic of Don't Stop Me Now keeps racing through my veins in something that feels like a caffeine rush would if coffee was about as legal as heroin.
"You?" I growl against her, barely resisting the urge to bite down on her neck and keep rutting her.
"I didn't use any aphrodisiac!" she protests.
I… stop.
Blink.
"Yunyun?" I gently tell her as one hand leaves a perfect breast to cradle her chin so she doesn't have to strain to keep looking into my eyes.
"Yes?"
"It is very likely that I just want you so badly that your mere presence acts as an aphrodisiac to me. You, of course, should now realize that I'm only saying this as an extremely embarrassing compliment and that, even if my heart may be both racing and melting at the revelation, that is not something I am in the mood to discuss while hilted inside of your wet, scalding, convulsing pussy."
Crimson eyes widen before narrowing into a joyful smile.
And I proceed to rail her fast enough that, hopefully, she'll forget what I just said after ten or so more orgasms.
***
He's probably doing fine. I mean, he's with Yunyun. That's easy mode. Even I could handle Yunyun instead of…
"Nice," Chris whispers with a grin of triumph that, coupled with the warm glow from the now-open secret door and the smokeless fire of my torch, in no way makes her look like a fantasy portrait. You know the ones: a silver-haired beauty surrounded by ethereal wisps that hint at preternatural grace that… well, she's a high-level rogue.
Her DEX stat should be… about as busted as Aqua's anything other than INT and LCK.
And maybe I should focus on that idea. On Chris dexterously handling my cock. On her displaying acrobatic skills in bed to leave my mouth dry and my cock shoved as far inside her thin body as anatomy says it couldn't be. On a lot of things that would turn this into a sexual scene apt to keep Crazy Train going rather than me staring dumbstruck at a single smile that I've already seen plenty of times, whenever she's managed to pull a fast one on me, or…
…
This is ridiculous.
I like Chris. She's… a good friend. And I like that she's been there for Darkness. I like that, out of all the things a goddess may have been tempted to misuse her power for, she chose to be… mischievous, witty, loyal, smart…
That she granted Darkness' wish not to be…
Alone.
So, yes. I like Chris. I may even admit I like her a lot. And, of course, she's easy on the eyes. Yes, she's not particularly gifted when it comes to her curves, but there's something to be said about lithe women with a gymnast's grace and a perennially displayed toned belly with just enough hint of abs to give Mikasa fans something to salivate over.
She's a friend. I like her. And I want to fuck her.
That's… about it.
That should be all it is that I feel when I catch in profile that grin of hers that is so hard to picture on Eris' face.
"Okay, time to get serious," she says as she stands straight, her fingers peeking out from between the opening of her concealing cloak to tug at the clasp below her neck before she shrugs, her hood falls away from silver hair, and tan fabric slides down her shoulders before fluttering to the floor and…
…
No. Way.
"Is that…?" I kinda ask, without daring to finish the line.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she immediately answers, yet again looking up at me from over her shoulder, the impish smile coupling perfectly with the now revealed suit she's wearing, even if 'wearing' may be a tad of a stretch.
As much of a stretch as all that fishnet that most of her suit consists of.
The ludicrous amounts of fishnet.
"That is… You can't tell me this isn't…" I struggle to formulate.
"An infiltration suit?" she says with exaggerated, blinking confusion.
"Only if you were going to infiltrate a brothel."
"How rude! I'll have you know this is a traditional suit for undercover assassins and demon exterminators—"
"That is a taimanin suit! You are wearing a taimanin suit! You walking copyright violation! How dare you wear a taimainin suit while in the presence of an orc!" I very reasonably say, only pointing at her with an adequate amount of proper dramatic emphasis.
"Gee, I wonder…" she says with an eye roll that does things to me.
As in, it all but forces me to try and grab her waist.
Which, of course, prompts her to let out an airy giggle as she seems to fade into a mirage between my outstretched hands and suddenly she's lying on the ground, slithering past the opening of the low secret door, her butt perfectly displayed both by very thin fishnets and what seems to be a yellow, armored thong that seamlessly melds with a bodysuit that leaves most of her back exposed enough for me to get stupefied at the sight of the writhing muscles acting in harmony as she advances.
Away from me.
I try not to growl, and I remember to catch my dropped torch before I kneel behind her, ready to chase her into the secret room, only for the luring vision of her butt to fade away from my sight right in front of me.
This may have something to do with me loudly and painfully bumping my head against the opened stone wall. I just refuse to acknowledge it beyond a mere possibility.
Also, my nostrils are… flaring. And I'm pretty sure I just discovered another one of my many, many orcish ancestral weapons. Specifically, smelling a female's arousal.
Because, aside from the cool, slightly damp atmosphere of an underground corridor and the scent of aged wood coming from the room behind me, there's another scent. One that is… piquant, I would say. Mildly spicy. Something that makes me catch my lower lip between my teeth and slowly let it out as I close my eyes and crawl forward, following the tracks of a woman wrapped in yellow leather, black fishnets, and silver accents.
"I don't care what kind of hiding skill you're using, Chris, I'm going to find you," I say with a growling voice as I keep moving on all fours, all but stalking her, following where the scent is at its strongest, where new notes of it are revealed as she keeps being excited and ready.
The stone is smooth under my arms and knees, and it takes me a moment to realize it must be marble rather than the gray granite of the previous room, but I don't care. I care only about dropping the torch on the floor and sniffing her, my nostrils opening once again, but this time out of my own volition as I notice her moving to my right.
I lick my lips.
Lunge forward.
And, as another airy giggle comes out, I crash through what must've been an incongruously cheap table.
"Oh, that was… That was just perfect," she says, and when I open my eyes, she's standing on top of me, her feet by the sides of my broad chest, the silver bands framing her thong tautly pulled against her groin.
"This is utterly unfair. This is orc abuse. As a member of a protected species, I must raise a complaint to the highest authorities of the land so they can properly protect me and allow me a safe space to procreate with any and all bitchy goddesses prone to taunting a hentai rape machine."
"I mean… I'm just playing hard to get?" she says with a slender finger tapping her bottom lip and an innocent head tilt that doesn't, in the slightest, pair with her taimanin outfit, even if the orange flames from the torch do come off as adequately dramatic when they cast glimmering reflections across the line of silver running along the outer edge of her leather gauntlet.
…
So, to summarize my horrified realization:
All the goddesses I'm having sex with are prone to theatrics.
"Are you?" I ask with a dry tone that does pair quite adequately with my dry lips.
"Maybe? You'll know if you catch me," she says with that grin of hers that doesn't make me confused so much as lunge forward as fast as I can, only for her to jump back with another fit of giggles that trail behind her as she dances across the many displays turning this secret room into some kind of underground museum.
"Come back here and get broken by orc dick like your costume demands!" I say, rising up and trying to navigate wood and glass furniture without breaking anything that could be magical in nature.
"What! No, that's impossible! I'll never lose to the cock!" she says, peeking around a glass cabinet filled with rings whose obvious symbolism I'm forcefully ignoring before she sticks her tongue at me in what is sadly not an ahegao.
Yet.
"You're doing this on purpose!" I say as I reach her last sighting, only to find a deserted corridor formed by two rows of oak cases stretching out in front of me and to the white wall beyond.
"You don't say," she whispers from right behind me, her hot breath washing over the tip of my ear, her leather-clad breasts pressing against my back, her short hair brushing against my temple.
Of course, when I turn around with my arms outstretched and I inadvertently knock down a tall cabinet, she's not there.
And, even if my dick currently looks like a dowsing rod, it's very much not helping.
So, doing my best to lean on recently discovered instincts, I strive to sniff her out, only to realize that…
She's everywhere.
The whole room smells like her arousal, a thin haze of it lingering across all the routes she could've taken from where I stand. I can smell her past the big shelf filled with bejeweled masks, behind the small case with a single crown, and on top of a mahogany armoire that stands right by the side of my recently toppled, short-lived, wooden nemesis.
Then she giggles.
And I chase.
A shadow shifting after a corner. A cabinet's door slamming shut. Rushed footsteps coming from behind me.
I keep turning and leaping at every new direction, barely avoiding more furniture destruction each and every time that Chris manages to give me the slip, only the hints of slender curves enhanced by fishnet, leather, and metal making me keep up the futile chase as my body steadily heats up until I unzip my jersey and take it off, my chest dripping with sweat.
Which, from what I've been told, must be making things quite interesting for Chris.
Let's just say she's not the only one able to fill a room with the scent of her arousal.
"Mmmm… This light does wonders for you," she says, a hint of silver hair peeking from on top of a dark red cabinet that I immediately grab and tilt toward me, trying to shake her off like a particularly ripe fruit from a very dead piece of wood that worryingly clatters at the sudden movement.
"Come back here, and I'll give you a much better look," I growl when I notice the piece of furniture lightening like an agile rogue just leaped off it and landed somewhere other than on the floor by my side.
"I'm getting all the looks I want, Kazuma," she says with a dangerous tone that makes something inside my head burn.
Again, I chase her.
A light giggle. Agile steps. A ghost touch along my nape.
"Chris, I hope you realize I'm going to have to take all of these frustrations out on someone," I warn her.
She laughs.
And, this time, I take the chance to use my own concealment skill.
The one I learned from her.
My presence fades away as I feel like I'm holding my ragged breath, and I slow down my pace, meticulously looking every which way at any intersection between tall and low displays that I go past, trying to catch her from the last direction I heard from her despite knowing just how quickly she's moved away from any of my attempts to corner her before.
But concealment works.
Or, at least, I think it does. Because, on the other side of a low display, a black oak case with a glass lid that shows four rows of rings laid atop a silk cushion…
She's sitting down on the floor, one leg stretched out, the other bent as she grabs her raised knee with both hands. There are… rivulets of sweat flowing down her flushed face, her silver hair sticks to her with heavy wetness, and even her belly, displayed by a square of black fishnet that goes from right below her breasts to the top of what looks like a very abbreviated thong, is almost as red as her cheeks.
This time, I do hold my breath.
And, rather than leap over the display, I reach across and grab her.
"Wha—not fair!" she says, kicking and twisting, trying to get free from the hands wrapped around her torso with thick, green thumbs pushing down on the pieces of silver underlining her bust, separating see-through mesh from yellow leather.
"Fairness has very little to do with any of this," I tell her.
And then I shove my tongue past her lips, over her own tongue, and down her throat.
Her fists hammer on my chest as her struggles become frantic, and then her legs wrap around my waist right as my hand goes down to support her by groping both cheeks of her ass at once, making sure to rub her in a way that has the metal framing her sex mash against her, small circles of shifting pressure forcing the slight girl to moan against me, or at least try to moan as I keep cutting off her breath and her giggles.
She stops hitting my chest, and her arms wrap around my neck at the same time as my skirt finally does what Aqua apparently designed it to do. That is: seamlessly glide down my rising shaft until the black and green piece of silk is bunched atop the base of my fully erect cock, barely getting in the way of my hard member pushing up along the crack of Chris' ass, the soft, yielding leather doing very little to disguise the feeling of soft yet firm cheeks honed by athleticism, youth, and sheer feminity that doesn't need rotund curves to drive me insane.
"Let go, you brute," she heatedly whispers in my ear.
Which… shouldn't be possible.
With, well, you know, my tongue shoved down her throat.
"Huh?" I very smartly ask as I pull away from the somewhat purplish face of the girl panting and gasping, looking at me with lidded eyes, her bangs shadowing her face in alluring danger—
Only for other arms to wrap around my neck, pulling against the front of my throat, and a set of lips finding my own as slight breasts push against my back as Chris rubs the entire front of her body against my sweat-slicked chest and belly.
"You… smell. You smell, Kazuma, and it's even worse than when you took my first time. It's even worse than when you laid me on top of your thighs and used me like a doll. It's even worse than when you made all my dreams come true," her ragged voice says in my ear, halting and deliberate, as her hand runs up and down my nape and the other girl keeps me muted in a very active way.
"You're welcome?" I manage to say when the maddening suction on my lips and tongue abates minutely.
"Don't say that yet," twin voices warn me. "We still have to thank you."
I blink.
In front of my eyes, Chris grins mischievously and triumphantly.
Clinging to my chest, another Chris sucks on her lower lip.
And, beneath that last Chris, my confused Orcish Spear decides that twins sound like a nice change of pace.
***
"Explain," I say, barely managing to use words rather than the growl that fights to come out of my rough throat as two silver-haired girls wear very inappropriate clothing and matching smiles.
"A divine treasure," the second Chris, the one that looks slightly less disheveled, says, pointing at a golden earring on her left ear that has a miniature mirror dangling from it.
"I don't know what those are—"
"You may know them as cheat items."
I, rather than open my mouth and say something that will make me look stupid and perpetuate harmful racial stereotypes, blink.
"You mean…" I say after a while.
"That every time Aqua gave out one of those, she… was running some risks."
"Risks? Like—"
"This," she says, pointing at the earring, "makes a perfect double of the person wearing it. It's not even a double. Not conceptually. Everything's shared by the two bodies. They think independently enough to act separately, but every sight, every touch, every sensation… it's the same. For both bodies. At once."
The other Chris, the one without an earring and who was clinging to my chest mere moments ago, nods with a wry smile.
It doesn't take a prodigious INT stat to piece things together.
"You must be used to it," I say, referring to the rather idiosyncratic issue of a third instance of Chris looking down on this whole thing from the heavens above while sitting on a throne that Vanir-chan shouldn't be allowed to rename, much less to something that rhymes with 'truck chair,' no matter how appropriate that may sound to my isekaied ears.
I still owe Eris a second virginity loss, after all.
"Not… quite. But yes, it's similar enough to making an avatar that it qualifies as a divine treasure just because of that. And yet…" the first Chris trails off, sharing an uncomfortable look with the second one as they both seem to decide not to tell me the dramatically omitted nugget of information that, if I don't force them to explain, will become a plot point further down the line solely meant to stab me in the back.
"Spit it out," I say with the eye roll of somebody who has gone through enough cryptic dialogues to guess where this is going.
"I mean, it may spoil the mood—"
"Chris—no, you know what? This is going to get annoying. You! The one I was tongue-fucking a moment ago? You are Chris. You? The one ambushing me from behind? You're Bling."
"Bling?" Bling says, making a passable imitation of Megumin's demonic cat when it doesn't like our culinary offerings as Chris blinks in befuddlement.
"It's that or I get some more cursed jewelry from here, give you a full set with no overarching aesthetic theme other than shininess, and call you Gyaru Chris."
She looks at me in open-mouthed horror.
I beam.
Chris, for reasons only known to people sharing three concurrent threads of consciousness, facepalms.
"All right," I say with a resounding clap that is done solely for the sake of drawing their attention rather than because of the unfounded rumor that I may also occasionally indulge in theatrics. "With that particular annoyance out of the way, I do believe it's time you explain to me the horrible thing about this piece of magic gear that makes it a priority for you to recover it."
The two Chri—Chris and Bling share a look with one another, and then Bling sighs in dejected acceptance.
"Remember that other room?"
"What, you mean the one filled with Darkness' Ikea catalog? Why would that be at all memorable?"
"Well… Imagine if you… If a powerful noble family got their hands on this particular treasure. If they kidnapped another noble. If they kept the original body as they let the copy run free. If they—"
"I'm going to burn this fucking place to the ground—"
"I told you it would ruin the mood—"
"I mean, I am in a mood to commit—"
"Stop interrupting me, you frustrating—"
"Me? I am the frustrating one? Oh, that's rich, coming from the girl who decided that our first date should feature a guided tour of a rape dungeon—"
"Well, it's not like flowers and fine dining were on the cards, is it? What with your stupid plan to use Crazy Train to date all of us at once—"
"It wasn't stupid! It was genius! And it was the best way for me not to show any undue favoritism to any of you as we all got to know each other and share our first dates—"
"You're fucking Yunyun silly right at this very moment! And knowing you two, it will be with plenty of eye contact, interlaced fingers, and constant whispers of borderline poetry!"
"You take that back! I've never written any poetry at all, and, if I did, I made sure to burn that blasted notebook after the first time a classmate caught a peek and—and nothing at all happened!"
Bling blinks at me.
Huh.
Maybe I should've chosen another name? That may sound amusing the first few times, but it's going to get tiresome fast—
"You're exhausting," Chris says.
"Thank you, but we weren't talking about my superlative sexual talents or your comparatively terrible stamina—"
"I can't even have a serious conversation with you!"
"Rape! Dungeon! I feel that's serious enough, unless you want me to treat the subject with any more levity—"
"I wanted you to know me!"
"What—"
Two identical girls look at me with flushed faces.
Both of them vanish simultaneously.
***
Okay.
All right.
I… may have missed some kind of clue as to what the Hell was going on. A layer of subtext. Something.
And it's…
I…
I know this feeling.
The… the certainty that there's some kind of right answer. That, if I was only able to see the whole puzzle, to look at the pieces how everybody else does, I would… I could get it. I would understand what just happened, why and how I made Chris flee from me.
It's a stupid thought.
There are no right answers.
There's just… people.
Complicated, messy, emotional people. Not pieces of a puzzle. Not riddles with a single, static answer, but… something that shifts and keeps on shifting. It's like that old koan, that thing about a wise old guy being as assholish as all wise old guys enjoy being.
'That is not the right answer.'
'But Master! Yesterday, you told me it was the right answer!'
'And it was. It was yesterday's right answer.'
Sounds obnoxious, doesn't it? Something that would make you want to punch the smug, likely wrinkled and tiny old man in the face, even if all martial arts cliches have conditioned us to expect what would immediately happen after the futile attempt to take karmic justice out of the Buddha's hands.
And that's people.
Or, well, that's me:
Always knowing yesterday's answer.
It's easy, you know? Once time has gone by. Once you've grown a tad more. Once you get a bit more context and allow yourself to realize things that you may not have been ready for in the heat of the moment. Maybe that girl who kept laughing at my jokes actually liked me, but she got tired of me not getting the clue. Maybe that teacher who acted so disappointed with my homework was trying to tell me he expected better from me. Maybe…
A lot of maybes.
I can't afford any more of them.
So…
I could chase her. I could use my own concealment skill and do what I just did, tracking her down, trying to find her, cornering her, and forcing her to talk to me.
It was the right answer, after all. Just the right answer from minutes ago.
But, if I am to look at all the pieces, at the puzzle that Chris isn't but maybe our relationship is…
I take a deep breath, and I walk to middle of the room.
This is where I knocked down a display case while trying to catch her between my arms. It is face up, the doors open, the left pane askew with one hinge torn off.
I pick the pillows from the intact shelves and shake the jewelry off inside of the cabinet before I throw them on the marble floor, and I sit on the pile of white silk cross-legged, lamenting the lack of plushness that, apparently, cursed items don't merit.
"Chris?" I ask of the apparently empty room.
Predictably, I get no answer.
"I am going to start talking. If you don't reply soon, I'm afraid I'll have to start jerking off so that Crazy Train doesn't wear off. Don't worry, I'll be thinking about you," I say because… well, because I am trying to make light of the situation, and crass jokes are about the only thing that comes to mind even if I know they are most definitely not 'today's answer.'
No. No, I…
I don't know.
Hopefully, I can learn.
"I didn't have many friends," I say, resting my hands behind me and leaning back to stare at a ceiling lit mostly by the abandoned torch flickering in some part of this wide room. There are other shades of light, some colors gleaming from the display cases, and they paint the plastered vaults in what could reasonably pass for an abstract watercolor.
It is, of course, an unfamiliar ceiling.
Even if the words I'm about to let out for the first time are far too familiar.
"I wasn't… popular. Or normal. I always had some kind of interest or way of seeing things that wasn't quite like other people. I was boastful when I was smarter than the other kids, and that, surprisingly enough, didn't get me… friends."
I keep staring, not letting my eyes wander from the shifting shadows and dancing lights above me.
"Or, well… I talked with some people. I thought that's what friendship was. But then… then I made one mistake, and I was suddenly alone. Abandoned. And all those friendships… vanished."
Nobody looked for me.
Months. Months locked up in that room, and nobody came looking for me.
And with every day that nobody did… it got harder to leave.
"Then I came here. And it was stupid. Outrageous. Nonsensical. I keep thinking about all the ways that this damn world doesn't make a lick of sense. I keep discovering new facts that make me want to track down whoever was in charge of the scenario writing and throttle them.
"But you were here."
I… smile.
"All of you. Ridiculous and over the top? Yes. Definitely yes. Nonsensical. Outrageous. Very much stupid, in Aqua's case.
"Nonsensical enough to be my friends."
I close my eyes.
The smile remains.
"And… And now, I… I have more than friends. Or maybe it's not more, but different. And I… I like it, of course. Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't like being in love with so many beautiful women telling you that they also love you? But… But it's too much. It's more than I even dreamed it could be."
A deep breath. One to steady my tone.
"It's… You're my friend, Chris. And you're… my girlfriend's girlfriend. And we're having sex. And I… I like you. A lot. I've always liked you. But… what's the difference? What's the difference between a girlfriend that you are in love with and a friend that you have sex with? Because… I… Is there a difference? If you… if you don't want to let go? If you want to see that cheeky smirk for the rest of your life? If you want to mess around with the mischievous rogue and… and get to know her? Is that… how would you call that?"
Thin arms surround my neck from behind.
Short hair caresses the side of my face.
Leather-encased breasts press against my back.
"You're too sappy," she mutters with a voice about as rough as my own.
"You got a taimanin outfit for our first date," I reply. Maybe not correctly. Maybe with the wrong answer for five minutes ago or an hour from now.
And maybe… with the right one for this very moment as I lean farther back against her and feel her body embracing me.
"Aqua helped," she mumbles.
"You're going to have to tell me about that sometime," I say with… with a smile that isn't a grin.
She pauses, the side of her face pressing just a bit harder against mine before she moves back so that she can whisper in my ear:
"Yeah. We've got the rest of your life to talk about things, after all."
I nod.
Then, before Crazy Train decides that this is all too disgustingly vanilla and it should cut me off, I turn around and shove my tongue down her throat.
I only stop when Bling forcefully pulls me away from the flailing goddess underneath me.
Which, of course, just means that I get to kiss two onahole goddesses for the price of one.
====================
Sorry for the delay, everyone. To make up for it, the next chapter is more than 9k words of the kind of weird smut I can only write in a setting with magic.
Shockingly, it isn't Yunyun's fault.
Let's just say that, when it comes to onahole goddesses, Aqua may have found herself in dire competition.
(Also, that I've found myself with an excuse to indulge my fetish for rogue types, and I should stop writing Chris segments before she ends up toppling Yunyun's benevolent yet tyrannical reign.)
Now, as to another matter: today's my birthday. As a means to celebrate, I've put one of my originals up for free on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQG56XRL), and, if you enjoy my take on raunchy, smutty, hopelessly romantic fantasy, you'll definitely enjoy this series. I'm going to slowly release it over here as well over the coming weeks, but if you want to support me, it would help immensely if you left a review, checked out my other books, or read the whole thing on my Patreon.
As always, I'd like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Agrippa?fan_landing=true): LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Vergil1989 Crossover King, and Xanah. If you feel like maybe giving them a hand with keeping me in the writing business (and getting an early peek at my chapters before they go public, among other perks), consider joining them or buying one of my books on https://www.amazon.com/stores/Terry-Lavere/author/B0BL7LSX2S. Thank you for reading!
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票